You’ll recall that last year Young & Restless executive producer/headwriter Josh Griffith hinted that when he thought of what was to come, he also thought of what might come back. “I’m always looking for menaces from the past, because it’s so much richer and more satisfying than bringing in some new villain of the week that nobody knows or cares about,” he told Soap Opera Digest. “There’s no emotional threat, and it’s just going to be a gimmick.”

In 2023, Griffith returned to the canvas Linden Ashby as Sharon’s obsessive stalker Cameron Kirsten and cast As the World Turns vet Colleen Zenk as the heretofore-unheard-of sister of the late Eve Howard. Since the boss is obviously open to inventing new characters with ties to old ones, that opens the door to a terrifying possibility: What if David Kimble had a kid out there… a kid who just happened to have a manipulative mama?

If the murderer did have family, they might descend on Genoa City intent on staking a claim to some inheritance stemming from David’s marriage to Nina Webster, who is of course loaded since the “demise” of her first husband, Katherine Chancellor’s sorta grandson, Phillip. (Got all that?) Mom could have raised DJ (David Jr.) to covet the life that he didn’t have growing up. She could’ve gotten him schooled so that he could be a threat in the business world and trained so that there would be no one he couldn’t charm the pants off.

Why would they have waited all these years to show up? Shrug. Why did Jordan wait decades to seek revenge on the Newmans for Eve’s death? That’s just the way things work with Young & Restless vendettas these days. Regardless, in short order, Nina would be thrust into a legal quagmire, Chance would find himself with a rival in the boardroom as well as for Summer’s affections, and we’d have a dynamic new scheme team on our hands.

Plus, casting the parts would be a blast. Michael Corbett could reprise his role of David to haunt DJ, with sonny boy being played by Roger Howarth (ex-Austin, General Hospital) and Mom by the estimable Maeve Kinkead (Vanessa, Guiding Light). Or who would you pick for each role? Drop suggestions in the comments after you check out the below photo gallery of Young & Restless’ all-time nastiest villains.